Wednesday, November 20, 2013

This Epiphone SG G-400 Deluxe Flamed Vintage Sunburst model was one of the first guitars I got by finding it locally on-line. Made at the Saein Plant, Korea, in February 2000, I bought it from a drummer who had left it with a roommate in Halifax. I later met the drummer when I got another SG from him. He evidently liked SG's but didn't keep them long. I had never liked this style of guitar. It was always the "bat wing" guitar. But once I played it I realized what the appeal of them was. They are extremely easy to play if set up well, have a great tone - this one somewhat "woody", they are light and comfortable to wear, and the maple top on this one makes it a little "brighter" than the normal solid mahogany body. You also have access to all the frets. Gibson made the SG (solid guitar) to replace the Les Paul which at the time wasn't selling. Of course, it didn't replace the Les Paul but has become one the standard electric guitar designs. I wish I had played one years ago because I would have gotten one sooner. For some reason I traded it for a surf green Danelectro U2 and almost immediately regretted getting rid of it. About a year later it turned up on-line for sale again and I traded a "Partscaster" Stratocaster for it. The Stratocaster had a wonderfully ugly brown pearloid pickguard on it that I have never seen again and wish I had kept. For awhile I had an "ugliest Strat" contest with a friend. Getting the SG back was like finding a long lost friend that you thought you would never see again. The fun was finding the same guitar, not another one like it. This is a "good" one.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

I bought a cobalt blue USA Fender Stratocaster with a rosewood fretboard in 1991 in Boston on a whim. I was just looking around the shop and saw the guitar and thought the color was great. I never had a new electric guitar. I had a job, I had money, I bought it. I kept it until 2007, when I finally realized I hated the color and I hated the skinny neck on it. I traded it for a black Gretsch ProJet and a black Fender Aerodyne Telecaster. It was a very good trade but now I had no Strat. So in 2008, I found a guy on Ebay named Blurred Carl in New Hampshire who made Stratocasters with Mighty Mite bodies and necks and Kent Armstrong pickups. He had one in the color I always wanted, Daphne Blue. It now has Fender 57/62 pickup set in it. The neck is perfect for me. It is always the guitar I go back to.

Sometime in 1972 when I was living in Austin, Texas, with Paul Henry Ray and Diana Thomas (now Diana Ray) Paul's bandmate in The Storm - Jimmy Vaughn - came over with a pale blue Stratocaster that he had just gotten at a pawn shop. It had rhinestones on the front of it. I always thought that was the coolest guitar I had ever seen. Jimmy's younger brother Stevie Ray was the guitarist in Paul Ray and The Cobras.